The Official PC building thread!

My Emachine t6216 sound was knocked out after a System Restore i checked the wires Looked at the hardware and it says it is workinf properly but nothing is coming out of the stereo i Didn't even touch the sound card so what is the problem? Any hel pwould be appreciated at all TY

 

Try updating the driver for it. Sounds poncey, but sometimes that does work, particularly after a system restore.

 

So the 590's are fianlly out on the market. Here is a list I am putting together for a client. Any thoughts?

Motherboard Asus 590 SLI $269:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131071

CPU E6600 $450 (with the cooling device combo bottom of page):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115003

Memory (2X1GB PAtriot pc800)$280:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820220144

Hard Drive (WD Carviar 250GB SATA) $78:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144701

Video Card (Asus 7950GX2) $570:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121017

Case w/Power Supply $95:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811144135

DVD Drive/Burner $30:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106014

That's a total of $1772 - with one video card.

I recommended that E6600 over the x6800 as I feel the performance increase is not worht the extra $600. Told him if he had the extra money, then get a second video card. Also, with quad cores coming out next year, he will want one of those.

My opinion is that this is a well balanced system cost vs. performance. There is still room to grow, but price goes up exponentially from here.


Any suggestions for better specs in this price range (below $2000)?

Also, am really looking for Core 2 Duo and not AMD. I am not a fanboy of either, but as of this month, C2D is outperforming AMD.

 

Basic principles are right, especially the E6600 over the X6800. However,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102045
X1950XT-Xs are a full $150 cheaper, and the situation is much like the X6800-E6600, the Radeon is quite a bit cheaper, and an insignificant amount slower. SLi with 7950GX2s is a bit of a farse really, that card will be enough.
Only problem is that you've used a case with its own power supply, which will proceed to break after 6 months. Cheap PSUs in expensive PCs are never a good idea. By all means get that case, but also get something like this Hiper PSU.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102045
With those amendments, the total system cost will be $1733.

 

its horses for courses with those cards, the 1950 is better with some games(like tomb raider legends) than than the gx2(which is better with fear).

i think you would be better getting the cheaper card now because dx10 is getting closer every day.

[bold]edit[/bold]

that will be 1 kickarse rig

 

I forgot to put this in too - 300w seperate power for the video card(s).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104019

Since we are starting with only 1 HD and 1 optical, I'm not too concerned with draw on the one that come with the case.

The goal on this is straight up performance/cost. No need for multiple HD's or RAID - for now.

 

Hello everyone.. I got my 3700 at 3.0.. very unstable at 1.5 volts..
but whatever..
how has everyone been? My conroe system is coming soon.
i can just upgrade this.. or i can sell what i have... and get everything better...

but i would just go for the E6400.. thats what i am getting.. i dont see the price difference of 100.00 difference.. and the 7950 or whatever... NO...just NO... what display are u using.. cause unless ur running like a 40inch or somthing.. the X1900XT is fine.. and it even out performes the 7950.. but other than that its an ok build.. with the extra, u can get urself a W.D. raptor 150 with the 16mg.. speed things up abit.. lmao.. btw: we got a Mazda 5! fully loaded.. OMG it kicks ass.. 27,00 later...

but hey.. u get what u pay for..
O at newegg.. ltheir is a samsung drive that runs at 18XDVD and it has lightscribe for 35.00.. so get that..

and seriously.. just get urself a Hiper..like i have.. or get urself a

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817194004

that will do like 4 of the X1950XT's..

but other than that it would/could be a kick ass system.. really... nice.. kick... ass... system... and the frecking MODS have not opend up amd vs. intel yet again.. gd.. this is getting old.. but that is old beef.... everyone hang cool..

my xfire is Triock91 just in case.. i would love one of u guys to send me a friend request..

bye,
Ryan

 

I'm not quite so enthusiastic about those supplementary PSUs. For a start it's another plug, they're quite noisy, and if you get a decent PSU to start with you shouldn't need one. Draw is not the issue with cheap PSUs, quality is. That 450W may only be capable of outputting 200W. Seriously, both cheap PSUs I've had have failed well under their rating, one of them destroying my PC. Just don't do it. NEVER skimp on a PSU, use cheaper components if you need to.

The 6600 is actually dramatically better due to the 4MB cache...

It doesn't, or at least not often, but it's a lot better value.

No it wouldn't. That can't run two 7950GX2s, so four X1950XT-Xs are out of the question!

That's boastful and off-topic.

Can't you live without that thread?

 

I am sorry if I am hijacking someone's thread or doing something I'm not supposed to. I had posted in the "Other pc hardware" forum and I was told to post in here. My current system is super out of date. It is starting to barely meet minimum requirements, sometimes not meeting them at all. I've had it for eight years so I figure its time to get me a knew computer. Problem: I am a moron. Which is why I need your help. I was planning on buying from somewhere like ibuypower.com or avadirect.com. Then I found that ibuypower.com are worthless and unreliable, and avadirect.com costs about $1500 more than if I build it myself. So I will be building it myself, but I have no idea what to do next. My budget is $3000 to $3500, and I want an awesome gaming system. I want to be able to run the newest games at the highest settings for as long as possible. I was planning on going with an intel duo extreme x6800, with 2 geforce 1GB 7950 gx2's. I'm not sure what motherboard I was going to get, I was going to have 2GB Corsair RAM. However, I am now lost. I used to think that using the x6800 and the 2 7950 gx2's was by far the best possible way to setup the computer, but now I have heard different. I've been told that the x6800 is barely as good as the 6600 and that the 7950 gx2's are crap. So after hearing all that, I was totally lost, the only thing I thought I knew was wrong. But to make it worse, I then found out I should probably not be getting anything for a while. I am now thinking on waiting for the directx10 cards and windows vista, I also heard that amd may soon be producing a quad core processor. As you can see this makes a person like me very confused, and now I have no idea what to do. If any of you would be kind enough to let me know what you think I should do, I would be very greatful. The bottom line is this: I want a top of the line gaming rig, or as close as I can get with 3500 dollars, but I don't want the system to be outdated in a month. I am living with the assumption that I should wait until all the new goodies come out, but how long do you think that will be, and do you think thats the right thing to do? Sorry if I bothered anyone with questions that should have obvious answers, I am not to bright.

 

OOO i thought the E6600 was teh second step past the 4mg if you know waht i mean.. i dont care.... whatever.. and it might not run 2 of the 7950's or whatever.. but anyways.. the 1900 does outperform the 7950 because of pixel shader processors..

thats the only thing the 1900 ahs on the 7950.. lol..

 

the 7950-GX2 is the top video card on the market

 

Pooface---
$3000-3500 (US$ I assume) Is going to get you the best of everything and people will find ways to spend all that (me included )
You probably can sqeak in there cheaper than that, but I'm sure people have already started piecing it together for you. Read the last few pages of this thread there are many ideas to start with.

 

Tis because it has sooo much ram.. tis all.. considering.. if the X1900XT was paired together like the 7950.. then it would be pretty damn hard to beat..

 

The top end stuff isn't crap, it's just overpriced. Still better, but unless you're a millionaire, not worth the money.

 

This is the configuration I was going to buy from ibuypower.com, until I heard from many sources that they suck really bad. But this is what I figured a near top of the line system would look like, and it is what I would have ordered.

Case ( Raidmax RX-9 ATX Gaming Tower Case w/420W Power Supply Red )
Case Lighting ( Neon Light Blue )

Power Supply ( ** iBUYPOWER Recommended for SLI ** Thermaltake Purepower 700 Watt Power Supply [SLI Ready] )

Processor ( Intel Core 2 Extreme Processor X6800 (2x 2.93GHz/4MB L2 Cache/1066FSB) )
Processor Cooling ( [New !!!] iBUYPOWER Liquid CPU Cooling Fan System Kit --- [for INTEL CPU] )

Motherboard ( Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe nForce4 SLI x 16 Chipset w/7.1 Sound, Gb LAN, S-ATA Raid, USB 2.0, IEEE-1394 Dual PCI-E MB )

Memory ( 2048MB [1024MB X2] DDR2-800 PC6400 Memory Module Corsair XMS2 Xtreme w/Heat Spreader )

Video Card ( ==[Quad-SLI]== 2x NVIDIA GeForce 7950GX2 1GB w/DVI + TV Out Video )
Hard Drive ( 300 GB HARD DRIVE [Serial-ATA-II, 3Gb, 7200 RPM, 16M Cache] )
2nd Hard Drive ( None )
Raid Configuration ( None )
External Raid Hard Drives [USB 2.0/eSATA] ( None )

CD/DVD Drive ( [** Special !!! ***] 16X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive Black )

CD-RW/DVD-RW Drive ( Sony DW-G120 Dual Format/Double Layer 16X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive Black )

Sound Card ( Creative Lab Sound Blaster Audigy SE )
Floppy Drive ( None )

Flash Media Reader/Writer ( 12-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer Black )


Wireless Network Adapter ( [Special !!!] Wireless 802.11g 54Mbps PCI Adapter )

I am super computer illiterate. I don't even know what some of those components are, like a flash media reader/writer or a RAID setup. But from what I do know this should be a pretty good machine, (I could be wrong, I am not too bright).

My biggest problem is that I'm not sure which components will work together, and which components are worth splurging on. The thing that has been bothering me the most is knowing when to buy the rig. I mean, should I go out and buy that setup as soon as possible, or should I wait for better components to come out, i.e directx10 and vista? As I said I will have a budget of about $3000 to $3500, but it will probably be between two to three months until I have all that cash in hand. So I do have time to wait for something if it's coming out in the near future.

I am not going to get the best sound system money can buy. I don't want surround sound and I don't need an expensive sound card, by doing this I hope to get the cost to around 3000 so I can afford a $500 monitor. I have tried to read through the last few pages of this thread but its like reading chinese to me, I just can't seem to follow it.

The approach I really want to take is to get an individual or a group who nows what they are talking about, (like you guys). And then have them go through my build, component by component. It's hard to explain. I need someone to help me chose each and every component to make sure it will work with the rest of the setup, and to make sure it is the best performing component I can afford. I live in southern alberta, (pretty much outer mongolia) and I don't think I could find anyone like that around here. But if any of you know of anyone in this area let me know. I really hate to ask this, but if I can't find anyone to do that where I live, would any of you be willing to help me out someway, if not I totally understand, but at the very least please try to show me where or how I could get that type of help. You guys have already helped a ton so thanks.

 

First off, you still need a separate PSU, no buts, no ifs, you do. Thermaltake, Seasonic, Enermax, Hiper, Tagan and Corsair offer some good ones.

 

(but that's just me being a jerk)

Anyway, if you need to wait, then you should look for the nForce 680i boards at least. They are due in the next month or so, and will use the C55 chipset instead of the C19. Plainly put, the C55 is much better at handling memory.

Also, the mobo you selected has two x16 PCIe slots, but only one runs at a full 16x, the other runs at 8x.

Currently, the only Intel compatible SLI mobo with two full x16 PCIe slots is the nForce 590 Intel Edition (like the one I am thinking of above).

One other thing to keep in mind - quad core processors are coming out very soon and no one knows if AMD or Intel will take the early lead. Chances are, Intel will, since they have 65nm processing figured out, and will quickly move to a 45nm platform.

This will mean another round of new mobo's coming out, and given that the nForce 590 (Intel edition) is already out the door - less than a month!!! - three months is going to see a LOT of changes.

DirectX10 and Vista are still a big question mark. If you are a gamer, plan on building a dual boot system, since the early word is that DX9 and previous will only work via some sort of emulator under DX10 and Vista. That means anything you build prior to DX10 (and any games you have now) will run DX9 and even a monster system will suffer performancce hits. That is assuming you like to play at max settings.

One more thing about the nforce 680i - assuming it's still a decent board 3 months from now, it should support quad core processors. No official word that it will, but some current boards already do (or claim to) so if it doesn't, that would be a step backward.

To answer some of your questions, the media reader/writer is one of those memory card readers - like the ones used to read memory cards from cameras. Therre are a bunch of different types of memory cards, and the one you are looking at reads pretty much all of them. You may want to find one like this wich is also a floppy drive (hey, you never know when you might need a floppy!!!):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815150056

Also, RAID is a way of configuring multiple hard drives. There are various options including mirroring (everything you do on one drive is mirrored on the other - instant back up) or striping (data is written across multiple drives at once) and other options. I am not really up to speed on RAID, but what once was primarily a server based technology is now common in high end systems with massive drives.

Hope this helps a bit!

 

tommorrow always brings somthing better.

next month see's vista unleashed on the world. end of that month brings intels new e6900(3.2ghz per core)which should closely be followed by the first of the kentsfield's and the first batch of dx10 gcards(just in time for xmas). then amd should be bringing the x2 5200 and 5400 athlons at the begining of next year followed by the new 65nm cpus(across the board), then they will follow that with board that take 2 x2s(fun to cool?) at about the time intel replace kentsfield's with the bloomsfield's. then amd will try to push the 45nm fab cpus on us (to compete with the 45nm penryn that will be replacing the conroe). i think that covers the next 12 months or so.

pooface, i think you miss understood some of my points, i dont think that the difference in performance between the e6600 and the 6800 is worth the extra cost, and 2 gx2s (sli) dont perform twice what one will do as mant benchmarks have shown.

now if i was you, with that kind of money to spend today, i would get a mobo that will run both kentsfields and pentium d's (wait till iv finished) i think the asus p5 range will do that(you will want one of the ones with on board wifi). then i would get a pentium d 920 and overclock it a bit, i would also get a good heatsinkfan to control the heat. i would also get a 7900gto (highend performance at a low price) and then with the cash you save (and what you can recoupe by selling the other parts on) you can be one of the first to get the kentsfield core and a dx10 grapics card thus keeping you up to date.

now i picked the 920 as the heat it would make overclocked a bit will be on par with that made by the kentsfields

the rest of the componants are up to the job or with things like case and card reader and that sort of thing are more of a personal choice. although i would use that link to check for your psu needs then pick a power supply that can handle your needs at about 80% of its maximun, for optimal efficentcy.

im sure someone will cover anything i have missed.

 

First I want to say thanks for all the help. But I am still a little confused, not by what was said, but just by what I should do. It sounds like it would be a complete waste of money to buy anything until vista and dx10 are out. I really don't want to buy a top of the line computer, only to have it lose a ton of performance due to vista and dx10 compatability. I have been searching for information on vista and dx10 but can't find even a speculative release date. Does anyone know when vista is going to be released? Vista, however, doesn't seem to be my biggest problem. DX10 seems to be the biggest problem. I have always wanted to have the best video card system possible, maybe for instance that means running quad SLI. If quad SLI is what I need than so be it, but I don't want to spend a ton of money on a quad SLI system, only to have it be obsolete within four or six months. So I am faced with the same question as with vista. When will DX10 cards be released, and when will DX10 make it's first appearence? My biggest problem now seems to be deciding when to buy and not what. If it weren't for DX10 I wouldn't be worried. I would be able to buy a vista ready system, and the system wouldn't lose a lot of performance over time, but with DX10 coming out it seems like a waste to buy anything until its out. I am not sure I understand the effects vista and DX10 are going to have, but the way I see it, it would be a waste of money to buy anything until both vista and DX10 are out.

 

I know nobody had replied to my last message, but since the time I wrote it I had a brain storm. I know all of you probably thought of this a hundred times, but with me telling you I wanted a $3500 top of the line system, this option was never really mentioned. OK, I have what I believe is a really crappy system right now. It's a Dell 4500 dimension. I have a intel pentium 4 2.53GHz, 766MB's of RAM. For my graphics card, I have a radeon 9600 xt 128MB. The extent of my computer knowledge tells me that those three factors are all that matter in playing games. I don't care about great sound, just great graphics and fast gameplay. I have been super pissed the last few days because I believe the best course of action is to wait for all the vista, DX10 and quad core processors to be released then buy a system. But if I do that I am missing out on playing some freakin awesome games for the next six months. I know some of you have mentioned getting a good system then selling it in order to upgrade later on. But I don't want to spend that much money for a great system right now, then sell it down the road for a better one. So what I was thinking, (and this is where I need your help) is what cheap modifications can I make on my old computer to make it playable for the next six months. The only thing I can think of is to upgrade the video card. This is where my pea brain fails me. I don't know how to find out what kind of a mobo I have and thus I have no idea how to find out what kind of a video card will work in my system. I also need to know where to strike the perfect balance between performance and price, that is to say, I don't want to pay a ton of money for a card I am only going to use for a few months. But I also want to get a card that will allow me to play with at least medium graphic settings. If at all possible I would like to be able to play games like battlefield 2142 and company of heroes on high settings, not the highest, but I would like to at least play them better than my current system (my current system barely plays battle for middle earth 2 and I doubt it would play company of heroes). So if anyone has any ideas on how to strike this happy medium it would be greatly appreciated. I would also need to know what I need to do to make sure the card would work in my system, i.e how do I find out what kind of mobo I have, which card will work with that mobo, and are there any other things I will need like cooling accessories. Thanks so much for all the help, I know I am annoying so thanks for bearing with me.